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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 



LABOR'S RELATION TO THE 



WORLD WAR 



ADDRESS BY 



W. B. WILSON 



SECRETARY OF LABOR 




tlo 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1918 



D # of D 

FEB 25 



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LABOR'S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 



ADDRESS BY W. B. WILSON, SECRETARY OF LABOR. 

If I was to compress into a single sentence my belief of the 
greatest need of our country. I would say that our greatest need is 
the spirit of self-sacrifice for the common good — a sacrifice of our 
pride, sacrifice of our prejudices, sacrifice of our suspicions against 
each other, sacrifice of our material comforts, sacrifice of our lives, 
if need be, in order that the democratic institutions handed down 
to us by our forefathers may be continued unimpaired to our child- 
ren so that they can continue to work out their own destiny as we 
have been working out ours, unimpeded by the autocratic powers of 
Europe. 

PEACE-LOVING PEOPLE. 

Our people is a peace-loving people. If we had not been a peace- 
loving people we would not have stood the indignities and wrongs 
that were heaped upon us as long as we stood them. We had 
dreamed of a continuation of peace. We had been inspired by the 
words of the poet, and longed for the time to come 

When the war drums throb no longer and the battle Hags are furled 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. 

But our dreams were rudely shattered, and, against our will, in 
spite of ourselves, we have been dragged into the great European 
conflict. When the war broke out in Europe your administration at 
Washington was anxious that we should keep clear of the entangle- 
ments. When Great Britain seized our vessels upon the high seas 
and haled them into courts as prizes, we believed it be in violation 
of international law. We entered a protest and claims for damages. 
When Germany seized some of our vessels and haled them into court 
we also entered a protest and laid our claims for damages. 

LIKE QUARRELING NEIGHBORS. 

We felt that these nations were like neighbors quarreling against 
each other, not for the moment susceptible to reason, but that when 
the war was over they would return to their normal conditions and 
then we could make our claim upon both of them for the damages 
they had done to our country. But Germany did not end with the 
hailing of our vessels into prize courts. She began a system of sub- 
ma line warfare, sinking our vessels without warning, destroying 
the lives of our people without giving them an opportunity to save 
themselves. That was an intirely different situation. There are 

3 



4 labor's relation to the woeld war. 

methods bv which we can indemnify for the Loss of property; there 
are methods by which you can restore property once it has been 
destroyed, but 'there is no method known to man by which we can 
restore human life when that has been taken. 

We protested vigorously to Germany against that system of war- 
fare that destroyed the lives of our people, and Germany agreed to 
desist. Again we were hopeful that we would be able to get through 
without being engaged in the conflict. But in January, the very end 
of it, we were given a brief notice by the German Imperial Govern- 
ment that they would again resume their submarine warfare, again 
destroy the lives of our people without warning. There was no other 
course left to us but to defend the lives of these people. 

PART OF THE PROBLEM. 

I know that amongst our own people the claim was put forth that 
no man should be permitted to go upon these vessels as a passenger, 
taking the chance of having his life destroyed and thereby endanger- 
ing the peace of his own country, and that our country should 
prohibit passengers from going upon vessels. But that was only a 
part of the problem. Suppose that we had as a Government, as a 
people, said to those who desired to travel upon those vessels as 
passengers, " You must not travel upon those vessels, or, if you do, 
you do so at your own risk." We would not then have solved the 
problem, because there were the seamen to take into consideration, 
the sailor upon the bridge, the fireman and the engineer in the hold, 
the cook and the steward, and the vast numbers of men who daily 
earned their bread in manning the vessels. Even if we had taken 
the passengers off, we would then have been placed in the pcsition 
of having to abandon our overseas trade altogether or of supporting, 
maintaining, and defending our sailors in their right to earn their 
bread in their daily vocation. I don't know what your judgment 
may be in the matter. I know what my judgment is, what the judg- 
ment of the administration was, and that is that the sailor earning 
his bread before the mast is just as much entitled to the protection 
of the United States Government as the most wealthy millionaire. 

" ONE VESSEL A WEEK." 

In the notice that Germany gave to us she very kindly said that 
she would permit us to send one vessel a week to England by way of 
Falmouth, provided that the vessel w r as striped like a barber pole 
and went by a given route. That was not our Government imposing 
its will upon us; that was not our Congress saying to us as a matter 
of precaution and safety that we must only send one vessel a week to 
England; it was not our Congress or our President speaking to us 
with authority granted to them by us, but it was the Kaiser, through 
his chancellor, undertaking to impose his will upon the people of the 
United States. No more autocratic action could have been taken 
by any autocratic Government on earth than the action of directing 
us how we should handle our business in its minutest details. 



LABOR S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 5 

GERMAN ESPIONAGE. 

But undertaking to impose its will upon us in that manner was 
Dot the only action on the part of the German Government that 
demonstrated the policy it desired to pursue toward our country. 
During the period of the European war it had systematically or- 
ganized an espionage system in our country that not only sought to 
find out what we were doing, but it undertook to blow up and destroy 
our manufacturing institutions with the lives of the people who were 
working in them in order that the British Government and the 
French Government should not secure munitions and supplies. All 
over our country it was not safe for any workingman to be engaged 
in any of these institutions. His life was at stake. Some of the 
German representatives connected with that diplomatic corps were 
given their walking papers because of these actions; others of them 
i re serving time in our penitentiaries. So that it is no mere assertion 
to say that that line of policy was pursued by the German Govern- 
ment. 

WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 

I know that even then some of our people alleged that we should 
not manufacture those munitions: that we should not send those 
munitions abroad to Russia, to England, to France, to Italy, to any 
of the belligerents other than Germany. They said the quickest way 
to end the war was to prevent the sending of munitions. Did you 
ever hear the story of the band of men — bandits — who raided a 
town? They were armed to the teeth. The inhabitants were un- 
armed with the exception of a few small sidearms. The citizens of 
the town who had arms gathered themselves together to resist the 
bandits who had come for the purpose of looting the town. They 
were having difficulty in holding out, and they sent some of their 
neighbors to an adjoining town to get some arms and munitions, and 
the people of the adjoining town immediately divided and some of 
them said, "We are neutral in this quarrel; don't let these citizens 
have any guns or ammunition. The bandits will soon clean the other 
town out and the quarrel will be over." They succeeded. No muni- 
tions were sent to help the citizens defend their town. The bandits 
did raid the town, loot the town, then disappeared. But in a very 
short time they appeared in the town that considered itself neutral 
and refused to send the munitions to the aid of the neighboring town, 
and they looted that town also. Would you want our country to be 
placed in that kind of a position? Of course, with 40 or 50 years of 
preparation, with guns and munitions and trained men galore, Ger- 
many was in a position, if the other nations could find no guns or 
munitions, to override all other countries, and that would be the 
termination of the war. But what of the future? But that was not 
yet all. 

INTRIGUE EXPOSED. 

Shortly after that time the correspondence was laid bare relative 
to the intrigue between Germany and Mexico and Japan. Germany 
sought to engage the Government of Mexico to come to her assistance, 
and as a bait held out to the Mexican Government it proposed to 
hand back to Mexico all of the territory now part of the United 



6 LABOR S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 

States that formerly belonged to Mexico. That included Texas, New 
Mexico, and Arizona. And then Germany held out as a bait to 
Japan, to get her assistance in making war upon the United States, 
that Germany would hand over all of the balance of the territory 
that formerly was Mexico — that is, the State of California, and in 
addition to that all of the Pacific coast of the United States and back 
into the interior as far as the eastern line of Montana. Fortunately 
for us, the Governments of Mexico and Japan were friendly toward 
us, and the scheme of the Imperial German Government failed of 
execution. 

GERMANY'S DESIGNS. 

Now, what was the purpose of endeavoring to secure Mexico and 
Japan to come to her assistance? First, that she might dismember 
the United States of America, that she might parcel it up, that she 
might take from the United States that young, vigorous manhood 
and womanhood of the West and place them under another govern- 
mental jurisdiction. Then if Germany succeeded in carrying out her 
design of a great central European empire with great overseas col- 
onies, if Germany succeeded in winning the present war and taking 
over the British, the French, the Italian, and the Russian fleets, naval 
and commercial, it would then be in position to dominate the com- 
merce of all the seas of the world, and if the United States would 
not submit to that domination would be in a position to bring her 
great trained army onto our shores, and compel us to submit. Under 
those circumstances there was only one course left for the United 
States to pursue in defense of democracy, in defense of our own 
democracy and that of the other democracies of the world. That 
was to take up the cudgel and declare war upon the barbarism that 
was seking to impose itself upon us and to carry that war. as we 
will carry it, to a successful termination. 

HUMAN INSTITUTIONS. 

We have no quarrel with the German people. The German people 
have no quarrel with us. Our quarrel is with the Imperial Germa i 
Government that has sought to impose the power of militarism upon 
the people of the world rather than the will of the majority. Our 
institutions are dear to us. Our forefathers sacrificed much to estab- 
lish them. They are not perfect by any means. They are human 
institutions. They have the imperfections of human institutions. We 
do not move as fast as some people think we ought to move ; we move 
faster than other people think we should move; but from the time of 
the Declaration of Independence until the present moment, when< er 
a majority of our people have seriously and earnestly desired that 
any proposition be enacted into law Ave have always found a method 
by which that majority could have its will expressed. To those 
people who believe that we are not moving fast enough I simply have 
to say that the difficulty is that you have not convinced tl ity 

that the course you are suggesting is the course that should be pur- 
sued. To those of you that think we are moving too fast I have this 
to say: Whatever your individual judgment may be, the majority has 
expressed its will, and the will of the majority should rule in 
democracies. 



LABOR S RELATION TO THE WOELD WAR. 7 

NOT CAPITALISTS' WAR. 

There have been some of our people here and there who have 
asserted that this is a capitalists' war, that it is a Wall Street war, 
that it is a munitions manufacturers' war. I wonder if those people 
have stopped to examine the policy that has been pursued by the 
Government since war was declared, and before it was declared, be- 
fore they made utterances of that kind. If this is a capitalists' war, 
then it follows that the administration at Washington — Congress and 
the President — have been dominated by capitalism, and. if they were 
dominated by capitalism in declaring war. it would follow that they 
would be dominated by capitalism in pursuing the war. And yet, 
what are the facts? Instead of permitting the capital of the country 
to secure profits at will, one of the first powers granted to the war 
administration was to fix the prices at which capitalists should sell 
the products of labor, the selling price of coal at the mines was fixed, 
the price of wheat was fixed, the prices of certain metal products 
were fixed, the price of copper was fixed, but in no instance has there 
been any attempt on the part of the administration to fix the maxi- 
mum price that should be paid for labor. And when it came to fix- 
ing the price of copper at 23} cents per pound the only stipulation 
that was included by the War Industries Board handling the propo- 
sition was that the fixing of the price at 23| cents per pound must 
not result in the lowering of the rate of wages that was established 
under the former prices. And yet there are people who, in the face 
of these facts and hundreds more that I might cite if I would take 
time, want to intimate that this is a capitalists' war, a Wall Street 
war, and a war of the munitions manufacturers. My friends, this is 
a war of the people of the United States for the preservation of their 
institutions. And for the purpose of preserving these institutions 
we are gathering together armies. We are sending the flower of our 
youth into the training camps and over the seas into France to pro- 
tect those who remain at home. 

CONDITIONS CHANGED. 

Under former methods of warfare, the methods pursued in years 
gone by, an army might travel through an enemy's country and sus- 
tain itself while it marched, receiving a comparatively small amount 
of munitions needed for the employment of a small number of people 
at home. To-day the condition is changed. We not only need the 
fighting forces at the front, we not only need the boys in the trenches, 
who are willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of our institutions, 
but we need the organization of the forces at home for the protection 
of the material necessary for their defense, and if those boys are 
willing to go there and make the sacrifice of their all, the sacrifice 
of their lives, if need be, in defense of your home and my home, of 
your liberties and my liberties, surely we who remain at home ought 
to be willing to make some sacrifices of our pride, of our prejudices 
and of our suspicions in order that we may have the full benefit of 
our man power in preparing the materia] by which the boys of our 
country may defend themselves. As I said to a portion of your 
people here the other day, I have three sons and eight nephews who 
are to-day under the colors. They are likely to be sent to the trenches 



8 labor's relation to the world war. 

at any time. They arc taking their chances, and if any mishap comes 
to them over there I shall grieve for their loss; I shall grieve for 
their injury, as you will grieve for the injury or the loss of your boy. 
But if that loss comes, or if the injury comes, in the course of the 
regular struggle, where they are supplied with all munitions, where 
they are taken care of as they should be taken care of, then my grief 
will be mingled with a spirit of pride that members of my family 
have made part of the sacrifice necessary for the maintenance of our 
institutions. But if loss of life comes to them, if injury comes to 
them, because they, like the Russians in Galicia, have not been sup 
plied with the necessary material to properly defend themselves, 
then with the grief in my bosom will be a feeling of shame that my 
countrymen were not willing to make the necessary sacrifices in order 
to produce the material with which the boys could fight. 

MUCH MATERIAL NECESSARY. 

A tremendous amount of material is necessary l<> properly equip 
our armies at the front. To secure this equipment will require the 
most perfect organization of our forces at home and the highest pos- 
sible standard of efficiency. It will require that our industrial dis- 
putes be abandoned, at least until the Avar is over, not by the process 
of crushing the worker or the employer into submission, but by the 
process of doing justice to both parties and to the public at large. 
A great deal has already been done by the Government in that direc- 
tion. Adjustment committees have been introduced in a large num- 
ber of industries, whose decisions are final and binding on both 
parties. In a number of industries truces have been arranged be- 
tween the employers and the employees for the period of the war. 
The mediation service of the Department of Labor is working out 
the settlement of many hundreds of disputes, principally before they 
reach the strike stage and consequently before they have any news 
value for the public press. Still more comprehensive plans are under 
consideration by the Council of National Defense, which, if put into 
operation with the approval of the great masters of industry and 
the trade-unions of the country, will eliminate all serious trouble 
until we have disposed of the common enemy. 

Our greatest difficulty has been the attitude of mind of employer 
and employee, but as soon as both realize that our institutions are at 
stake in the issues of this war, and that sacrifice on the part of every 
one for the common good is the great essential duty, we have not had 
much difficult} 7 in bringing them together and adjusting their dis- 
putes. 

WHY WAR AS MEANS OF SETTLEMENT OF NATIONAL DISPUTES 
WAS REPUGNANT TO AMERICAN LABOR. 

[Prepared bj E. P. M ubsh.] 

During the past decade the sentiment of American labor had 
crystallized against resort to arms as a means of settlement of dis- 
putes between nations. War had come to be believed as wasteful 
economically, socially, and morally. Labor felt that no national 



labor's relation t<> the WORLD war. 9 

advantage gained through force of arms could offset the human life 
sacrificed, the burden of taxation levied upon successive generations 
to pay the cost of war. the standards of life sel back or destroyed, 
which had to be rebuilt slowly and with infinite sacrifice. In short, 
war had come to be looked upon as morally wrong, entirely unneces- 
sary, a calamity that could be avoided and must be avoided if the 
race was to progress. This feeling was shared to a greater or lesser 
extent by the workers of all civilized nations, and there was a uni- 
versal feeling in world labor ranks prior to the outbreak of the 
European war that this sentiment, shared by many thoughtful 
people outside the ranks of the wageworkers in all civilized nations, 
was strong enough to prevent any armed conflict which would in- 
volve any number of peoples. This sentiment was undoubtedly re- 
sponsible for the lack of military preparedness, in the sense that 
Germany prepared, among the other major powers now engaged in 
the world conflict. The preparedness of Germany was known to the 
statesmen and diplomats of other countries, but public opinion in 
the world at large, obsessed with the belief that conflict was im- 
possible, would have overthrown any government which attempted 
to commit its people to any militaristic program larger than that 
which its people had accepted as necessary for national police pro 
t ection. 

EFFECT OF OUTBREAK OF EUROPEAN HOSTILITIES UPON LABOR 
SENTIMENT IN AMERICA. 

When the war clouds broke in Europe American labor was 
stunned. All its preconceived notions as to the inability of any 
great nation to wage war upon another nation because the working 
people would refuse to either fight or produce munitions and sup- 
plies of war were shattered when nation after nation quickly mob 
ilized its armies and the organized-labor movements of each country, 
without exception, quickly pledged their men and their resources to 
the support of their respective governments. But the fact that 
America itself might be drawn into the world conflict was still for- 
eign to the mind of the American workman. While American labor 
grieved over the fate which had befallen its kind in Europe no sense 
of danger to this country was apparent. From the beginning of 
this Republic it had been our national policy to hold aloof from the 
quarrels of the Old World. Thousands of miles from European 
shores we had preempted a new continent. The vastness of its 
natural resources to our national mind offered an asylum for the 
oppressed of Europe, a great melting pot for the common peoples 
of the earth where under the protection of a great democracy they 
might build their family altars, worship God according to the dic- 
tates of their own conscience, free from the oppressions of imperial 
and autocratic systems of government. The splendid isolation of 
thousands of miles of ocean protected us. We hail no quarrel with 
Europe and we asked but to be let alone. We stood upon our rights 
to protect the people of continental America from invasion or ag- 
gression as enunciated by the Monroe doctrine, and further than 
that we could not see that the European conflict embroiled us as a 
nation. Let Europe settle her own family quarrel. We, were to 
remain the one great neutral nation of the earth. When the time 



10 labor's relation to the world war. 

came America, untrammeled by participation in the conflict, with no 
desire for American aggrandizement nor territorial expansion, 
would be the natural messenger of peace to war-worried Europe. 
This latter thought was the administration view in the early stages 
of the war, the hope of President Wilson himself. 

We had assimilated in this country millions of peoples from all the 
warring nations. Germany had contributed her sons and daughters 
in large numbers. They were classed Al among our incoming immi- 
grants. Frugal, law-abiding, readily assimilable, they had brought 
to this country all the attributes which apparently make a nation 
great. They contributed to our arts, to our sciences, to our indus- 
tries. The German people are essentially a domestic people, and the 
virtue of the family tie was accentuated by the immigration of the 
German to America. Every hamlet in America had its quota of 
German families, good citizens, big hearted, and our impression; of 
Germany were the impressions gained by every-day contact with 
these simple, honest folk. It is easily understandable, therefore, that 
the thought of a Avar with Germany was a monstrous nightmare. 
What quarrel had we with such a race of people? We could not 
imagine the people living in Germany as beino; so very much differ- 
ent from those who had emigrated to our soil. We argued that it 
would be a great moral crime to wage Avar upon a people such as 
these within our borders, and our social contact with our citizens 
of German birth and ancestry made the thought of such a Avar un- 
speakably Avrong. We were at fault in that we did not make a pains- 
taking analysis of the contrast between the forms of government in 
Germany and America, a study of the political history of the two 
countries. Such an analysis and study would have made many things 
clear to us which for so long seemed inexplicable. 

GERMAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT VERSUS AMERICAN. 

No one denies that American history down to the present date fur- 
nishes its glaring examples of inequalities and injustices. We have 
had and still have our plague spots in American industrial and social 
life. We shall probably never be a perfect democracy. Man's inhu- 
manity to man Avill crop out in all human relationship. There is no 
desire to excuse nor condone the things that have been done in this 
country that are black blots upon civilization. But Avith all our 
imperfections, industrial wrongs, and social ills, the big Pact stands 
out that this is the most perfect democracy yet concei\ed upon tho 
face of the earth. Nowhere else on earth is the same power to right 
injustice and wrong by sane, constructive action granted to the peo- 
ple of any nation. When a majority in this country become con- 
vinced that a certain governmental policy is best for the people, an 
expression is found for that belief. If a certain policy has not been 
adopted, it is because the minority has not been able to convince the 
majority that it is right or seasonable. American government is 
founded upon majority rule. It is recognizable that a majority may 
be wrong or misled, but the myriad avenues of information and 
education invariably in time lead the majority to the sound, logical 
way of thinking, despite the efforts of those who would mislead, and 
the right method of solution finally Avins its appeal to a majority of 
the citizenship and the thing desired is obtained. This is because the 
humblest citizen in the land is the State. 



labor's relation to the world war. 11 

This form of government needs to be sharply contrasted with the 
German form of government to understand the sharp contrast. The 
most patent contrast is between the office of President of the United 
Stales and the Emperor of Germany. The President of the United 
States executes the will of the people of the United Stales. His 
views may be in contradistinction to the views of the people. lie 
must convince the people that he is right and they are wrong, else 
he and his party will be overthrown at the first election. The Ger- 
man Kaiser rules through the law of heredity, a procedure accepted 
by the German people through centuries. No power save force of 
amis caii dethrone their ruler. Through the centuries the German 
people have been taught that their Emperor ruled by divine anoint- 
ment. The most deep-seated instinct in man is the religious instinct. 
Through all the changing epochs of human advancement, the prin- 
ciple of divine right of rule has been held uppermost in the minds 
of the people. Little by little as the political demand for self- 
government as a means of expression of human wants and needs has 
spread through the world, it has had its reflex in Germany by an 
extension of the right of suffrage and added political expression to 
the people, but the theory of divine right of kingship has never been 
deviated from a hair's breadth by the ruling house Of Germany. 
Through centuries an autocratic cabal has been built up and about 
the ruling house of Germany. Might, not right, has been the 
foundation upon which Germany's ruling power has planned and 
builded. There comes a time in the history of all nations when the 
ruling power has to justify its methods to its own people, if those 
methods seem to differ sharply from the methods of other nations. 
As democracy gained ground in other countries and peoples gained 
the right of determination of their own destinies, the German Gov- 
ernment found it must prove its own theory of autocratic govern- 
ment. The German Imperial Government in that period had visions 
of a world empire, not content with its narrow geographical bottnda- 
i From the beginning of time man has clung tenaciously to 

the spot of ground he has called his own, no less true of men in the 
mass than of individuals. The fiercest wars in history have been for 
possession of the earth's surface, the means of subsistence of man- 
kind. Subjugation of peoples which brought territorial expansion 
has in all the history of the world been finally consummated by force 
of arms. 

The German rulers of that day mapped out a campaign of con- 
quest, but with it all realized that conquest comes to the best pre- 
pared state, and that the greatest asset of a state is a united people 
that can stand the supreme test. Men will fight for the perpetua- 
tion of ideals and the imperial statesmen and kingly advisers of that 
age sought to impress upon the German mosses the ideal of a strong, 
centralized, autocratic government as being the best assurance of 
their daily well being. It was with this in mind that the system of 
agrarian and industrial reforms took root in Germany, rooting in 
the beneficent care of the state. Germany led the world in her 
system of social and industrial reforms, throwing around the com- 
mon citizen the protecting arm of the state, building in the mind of 
the German citizen a belief in his autocratic, centralized govern- 
ment as the source from which all blessings flowed. Through sue 
seeding generations this policy was pursued until the German citi- 



12 labor's relation to the world war, 

zeu of humble birth looked upon the state as the source from which 
he received the things which made life bearable. Having firmly 
implanted that belief in the mind of the German citizen, it was a 
natural and logical step to the belief that any clash between his 
autocratic government and the government of any other nation 
threatened his own physical well-being. There you have the whole 
story of the loyalty of the German people and people of German 
ancestry t<> the government of the land of their or their ancestor's 
birth. This Ave failed to take into account in the early stages of this 
war, and failing this we failed to fathom the German people. 

THE GERMAN POLICY OF AGGRESSION. 

The German Imperial Government never recognized the principle 
of arbitration as a settlement of international disputes. When the 
Government of the United States, through The Hague conferences, 
sought to negotiate treaties between nations with arbitration as the 
determining factor in the settlement of international disputes Ger- 
many blocked the way. She recognized but two means of settlement, 
viz, diplomacy or war, never arbitration as the last resort of settle- 
ment. When the present world conflict was precipitated she violated 
the neutrality of Belgium with a brutal impunity that startled the 
world. No blacker page in history has ever been written than the 
German invasion of Belgium. No historian will ever live that can 
paint that picture of ruin and desolation as it actually exists. Be- 
neath the soil of that outraged land molder the bodies of Belgium's 
people, who in all their lives committed no crime against individual 
or state, victims of German outrage. Sold into slavery worse than 
death, by the thousands, Belgium's womanhood cry aloud for ven- 
geance, Throughout Belgium and northern France cities lie waste 
and desolate, the noblest works of art and statuary desecrated by 
the German horde, a blackened, smoking, deserted land bear testi- 
mony to the ruthlessness and fury of German autocracy. Were there 
no other claim to American chivalry, the ruin the house of Hohen 
zollern has brought to that land would cry aloud for American 
sympathy. 

" But," the American pacifist will say, " even that does not excuse 
America's entry into the war. Better that Europe carry to its 
fruition its war of extermination than American lives be lost in the 
world holocaust and America abandon its century-old policy of non- 
interference in the affairs of European nations. Germany does not 
threaten the Unite'd States." 

As if the ravishment of Belgium, with all its horrors and its vio- 
lation of international treaties, were not enough, Germany began an 
era of frightfulness upon the seas. All the diabolical ingenuities of 
the Spanish inquisition, the war upon the Aztecs, do not surpass the 
inhumanity of Germany's submarine warfare. It were not enough 
that actual combatants should be slain ; women and children who had 
no part in this war were sent to watery graves by the demon that 
lurked beneath the waves. There arc those who maintain that 
America should have abandoned her overseas commerce ; that Ameri- 
can travels had no business in the war zone. From time immemorial 
it has been the common agreement among nations that neutral nations 
should have free right to the seas for their commerce in war as in 



LABOR. S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 13 

time of peace. If these ships carried contraband of war, it was the 
right of Germany to hale them into a prize court and upon estab- 
lished guilt confiscate them as the prize of war. Germany had no 
right, moral or legal, to fire without warning upon a ship of a neutral 
nation and send its human cargo to the bottom without a chance on 
earth to establish guilt or innocence. Suppose the United States 
Government had acted as some wished and prohibited American citi- 
zens from traveling within the war zone. Even then the fact re- 
mained that by time-honored agreement the ships of neutral nations 
had a right to travel the seas freely in the carrying on of the world's 
commerce, subject only to search and seizure for contraband as estab- 
lished by the law of nations. The great Government of the United 
States owed its protection as much to the humblest seamen in the 
forecastle in the pursuit of his livelihood as to the captain who trod 
the bridge. If the Government of the United States had cravenly 
yielded to the dictate of the German Imperial Government that 
American ships could sail only upon a certain date and by a given 
route, it would have yielded a right that would have brought down a 
storm of protest from our own citizens and merited the despisal of 
every other nation on earth. We protested against this barbarous 
method of warfare upon the part of Germany, and Germany prom- 
ised reparation. And then came the notice that she would resume, 
her submarine warfare upon neutral shipping without warning. It 
was to all intents and purposes a declaration of war upon the United 
States. 

Nor was this all. Not content with sinking American shipping 
and taking American lives, Germany inaugurated a reign of terror- 
ism in our own country. She was caught red-handed in the plot to 
destroy American manufacturing establishments needed in produc- 
tion, sow the seeds of unrest and dissatisfaction among our industrial 
workers, promote strikes and industrial discord, and destroy the 
morale of America's industrial army — as truly a part of the Nation's 
defense as the boys we are sending to the trenches of France. 

Nor was this all. Again she was caught red-handed plotting with 
friendly nations to turn their resources against the United States, in 
return for which Germanv, if successful, promised to partition off 
the western half of the United States and cede it outright to the 
countries she was trying to negotiate with. These nations were 
friendly to the United States, and Germany's plotting went for 
naught, but it does not alter the damnable fact that in so doing 
Germany was warring upon the United States. 

NOT A WALL STREET WAR. 

For a considerable time the feeling has been prevalent in this 
country that all wars were fought in the interests of the capitalist 
class; that labor had everything to lose and nothing to gain by 
engaging in war. This sentiment has obtained not alone among the 
laboring classes but among a large element of independent thinkers 
outside of labor's ranks. The sentiment was freely expressed when 
America entered the world war that Wall Street, being heavily in- 
volved in loans to the allied European nations, and feeling the war 
going in favor of the central powers, }vid plunged this Government 
into the conflict to assure victory to the allied forces and thus secure 



14 labor's relation to the world war, 

the collection of their loans to the allies. The sentiment was echoed 
and reechoed upon the public rostrum and upon the street, in all 
sincerity upon the part of many, in the shallowest hypocrisy upon 
the part of the agents of Germany, who saw in the propaganda an 
effective argument in the program of dissension among American 
workers. A little calm reflection ought to convince every thinking 
person that American capital had most to gain by keeping the United 
States out of the war. 

Before we entered the war there was no governmental restriction 
upon war profits in this country. Europe was at its wit's end for 
supplies and turned to the United States, the greatest manufacturing 
country on earth. Price was no object if the American manufactur- 
ers could deliver the goods in record time. There was profiteering in 
those days and on a tremendous scale. When American entered the 
war things changed. It would be an insult to your intelligence to 
say that profiteering has ceased — for it has not — but it has tremen- 
dously decreased. The United States Government has arbitrarily 
fixed a selling price at which many of the leading commodities may 
be sold, and that price is far below the price asked and obtained for 
the same commodities to the allied nations before America entered 
the war. Governmental price fixing is still in its initial stages. The 
process is slow because we little realize the tremendous ramifications 
of American industry, all the complex factors that enter into cost 
production in our great industrial system. The United States Gov- 
ernment wishes no manufacturing or supplying concern to run at a 
loss, nor does it want the worker robbed of his rightful share. It 
takes time and careful, scientific study to determine all the elements 
of cost production and determine a selling cost that will be fair to all, 
but that is the policy of the Government in its program of price 
fixing of commodities needed in war prosecution and the sustenance 
of the American people on a decent living basis. 

If this were a war engineered and controlled by Wall Street it 
would be fair to assume that the Government while fixing the selling 
price of commodities would also fix the selling price of labor. It is 
worthy of note that in not a single instance in this country has the 
Government attempted to say what should be the maximum price of 
wages. In every instance where a wage dispute has existed in a war 
industry the Government, if called into the dispute, has used patience 
in inquiring into the nature of the dispute and has endeavored to 
adjust the controversy on a basis acceptable to the workers involved. 

A WAR OF IDEALS. 

This is emphatically not a capitalistic war as far as the United 
States Government is concerned. It is a war of ideals. With Ger- 
many it is a war to perpetuate the absolute rule of the State over 
the destinies of its subjects. Under the German system the State sets 
itself up as the final arbiter over the lives of its citizens, with or with- 
out their consent. It claims, through the theory of Divine right, to 
be intrusted hv Providence with all the affairs of its subject people 
In the secret diplomacy with other nations the c< mmon people are not 
consulted, their wishes given a moment "s consideration. Peace or war 
depends not upon the wishes of the people but upon the whim of 
the House of Hohenzollern. German imperialism means govern- 



labor's relation to the world war, 15 

ment from above, handed down to the people with or without their 
consent. 

This is decidedly not democracy. Democracy is the judgment of 
the mass of the people as to what shall constitute rules of life and 
conduct, expressed through their representatives, by whatever method 
chosen, and administered in the interests of the masses bv chosen rep- 
resentatives responsive and responsible to the mass of the people. 

The conflict is deeper thai) sweating, straining armies, the roar of 
musketry or shriek of shell. It goes down to the very roots of hu- 
man society, it determines the relationship of every man, each with 
the other, upon this earth. In the unthinkable event that the Ger- 
man ideal should win, humanity would lose all it has gained in cen- 
turies of toil and sacrifice. A "descent to the dark ages of the past, 
when brute physical strength determined the strata of society, is 
unthinkable and will not occur, else this is an age of retrogression and 
not progression. 

labor the determining factor in this war. 

There has never been a war in history in which the mechanical, in- 
ventive, productive genius of man has played such a part. It is 
melodramatic in its combination of brain and muscle as applied to 
all the stagecraft of war. It is no longer the shock of body against 
body, the impact of missile in the human frame. Science, mechanical 
skill, and muscular energy play a part never dreamed of in any war 
since the dawn of history. Water, earth, and air all witness the 
titanic battle of the centuries. Could the greatest generals of cen- 
turies gone, the greatest strategists in the art of war, be again trans- 
planted to earth and witness the present world spectacle, they would 
be in a world utterly unknown. We are sending the pick of our 
manhood to the French front, there to uphold the tradition of Ameri- 
can arms. That they will fight like demons and die like heroes we 
know, for the American soldier is the equal of the world's best. 
From " over there " will come ere long the story of their heroism, 
the honor roll of those who will pay the last great price that this 
Nation may endure. Not they alone will fight the battles of democ- 
racy, though generations yet unborn will sing the praises of heroic 
deeds and mourn the memory of departed heroes. In the workshops 
of America, down in the bowels of the earth, on the soils of America's 
farms, in the countless homes throughout the land must this war be 
fought and won. American labor, working tirelessly at its appointed 
task, will do its yeoman task in winning this war. and without that 
labor the sacrifice of the boys in sunny France is wholly lost. 

The man or set of men who would traffic in the necessities of a 
people or mulct the Government out of undue profits in this Nation's 
hour of stress is a traitor to the country whose protection he claims. 
By the same token the man or set of men who would stir up strife and 
dissension in American industries for no other purpose than to hinder 
the Government in its prosecution of this war should be branded 
with the sane' brand of traitor. This country has no room for either. 

A DANGEROUS PROPAGANDA. 

There is a propaganda in various sections of the country, falla- 
cious, subtle, dangerous to industry in peace times, doubly so when 
the country needs the maximum production of its industrial forces. 



16 labor's relation ro the world war. 

Its philosophy is that the capitalist system is wholly wrong and 
must be overthrown, but instead of the orderly methods of education 
and legislative enactment, it seeks to create chaos in the industrial 
world. By a continual harassment and annoyance, lessening of effi- 
ciency in production, in devious ways and by questionable methods 
it seeks to reduce the profits of employers and hasten the day when 
private capital will relinquish the means of production and distribu- 
tion of wealth and the workers will collectively operate and manage 
industry in general. It is distinguished from the political propaganda 
of collective ownership in that the latter believes that state of society 
will come about only as society in general accepts through education 
the theory and puts a stamp of approval upon it by means of the ballot. 
The trades-unionist, even while he may accept the philosophy of collec- 
tive ownership and management of industry, believes that as long as 
private ownership remains, the best interest of the worker can be 
best maintained by entering into mutual contractural relationship 
with his employer and mutually agreeing to certain terms of employ- 
ment for a given time. He holds that agreement to be sacred and 
binding during his life and gives to his employer the maximum of 
his productive ability, believing that the greater quantity of wealth 
produced means more to be divided between workman and employer. 
Mis concern becomes, then, not to hamper nor slow down production, 
but to secure for his labor as large a share of the wealth produced 
as possible, recognizing that under the present system the employer 
is entitled to reasonable profits, and if the business will not return 
those profits it will not long operate. The first-named propaganda 
frankly wages war upon capitalism and draws no distinction in its 
philosophy between big or little employers of labor. All must go 
down together in a common wreck before collectivism can be estab- 
lished, and it has no time nor patience for political methods and 
repudiates the agreement method of the trade unions as a means 
through which capitalism retains its hold upon the industries of the 
country. It finds a ready ground for its propaganda in those indus- 
tries where workmen are given the least consideration by their em- 
ployers. Where men are denied the right of organization, where 
onerous conditions of labor prevail, where the standards of life are 
low , where the means of redress of real or fancied grievances are 
lacking, men are inclined to be sullen and resentful in their attitude 
toward their employers and to be distrustful of society at large and 
give ready ear to the doctrine which preaches war upon society, at 
the same time holding out an apparaent panacea for all the ills and 
injustices of our social life. 

PROPER RELATION OF LABOR AND CAPITAL. 

Employers generally will agree that labor ought to be well fed and 
clothed and housed, but too many of them deny to labor the right to 
itself have a voice in fixing the conditions under which it will func- 
tion. Labor is classed as a commodity, in the same category as brick, 
or steel, or iron, or other inanimate objects, and to be trafficked in 
in the same way. Capital too often wishes to be the sole judge as 
to all the conditions surrounding labor, fixing the terms under which 
labor will be bought and sold as it does any other commodity. Labor, 
being animate, endowed with the faculties of reasoning, wishes to 



labor's relation to the world war. 17 

work out its own destinies in its own way by a measurable control 
over its own functioning power, the only means it has of sustaining 
life. It is the clash of these two ideas of social relationship that has 
been responsible for the long drawn out fued between capital and 
labor. Each side must recognize two great principles if capital and 
labor are to be coordinated in this war for world democracy. Labor 
must recognize that while it is employed it owes it to society that 
the maximum power of labor consistent with the maintenance of 
mental and bodily vigor be given to the task in hand. Capital must 
recognize that it has no property right in the labor power of man. 
Under existing society it may have a property right in the product 
of labor power, but no property right in the labor power itself. It 
can not be bough) arbitrarily with no voice given to labor as to the 
terms of sale. 

COLLECTIVE bargaining a modern necessity. 

The day is long past when business institutions can live and pros 
per as individual units. Industrial life has ramified in so many direc- 
tions, modern demands of society based upon new and complex 
standards of life have made it necessary for business to combine and 
pool its resources and its activitiy. It is an unreasonable and unten- 
able position for modern industry to assert for itself its right of com- 
bination and deny that right to the laboring people. That the forces 
of labor and capital must be coordinated if this war is to be won 
goes without saying. This can not be done unless labor and capital 
can come to a mutual agreement concerning their relationship. Labor, 
denied the right of self-expression, always feel itself aggrieved, is 
never an efficient force because of the discontent which lies smoldering 
beneath the surface and which may at any time break out in disas- 
trous strikes and other industrial disturbances. If labor is to be a 
partner with capital in the welding of a nation that shall conquer 
German autocracy, a recognition of the rights of labor to be consulted 
on the terms of partnership is essential. The extension of the prin- 
ciple of collective bargaining throughout American industry will do 
more than any other thing to help win this war. and the sooner the 
captains of American industry recognize that fact and carry its appli 
cation into effect, the sooner this war will be over. 

MAINTENANCE of accepted labor standards. 

Labor rightly demands thai the accepted standards of labor shall 
not be broken down. The reasons for this correct attitude may be 
briefly enumerated. First, they have to do with the health and 
vitality of the worker and dependents. The physical condition- 
surrounding the laborer at his work and in his home determine his 
fitness to perform his allotted task. If he is illy nourished, illy 
sheltered and clothed, or working amid unsanitary surroundings 
and beyond his normal strength his productive power deteriorates 
and that lost labor power is a direct loss to his country at a time 
when it is needed most. To say the least is would be inconsistent 
to proclaim as the war aims of America the spread of democracy 
among the nations of the earth and reduce or take away those things 

40430—18 2 



18 labor's relation to the world war. 

from our own people which are reckoned the direct fruits of democ- 
racy. If in the exigencies of this war there comes a time when there 
seems no help but to set aside temporarily some established labor 
standard labor will make the sacrifice if convinced it is necessary 
to defeat the common enemy. Labor rightly will not consent to the 
lowering or removal of standards if it believes that private capital 
and not the common good of the country is to be the beneficiary of 
such a sacrifice. 

A common patriotism and a common sacrifice. 

There are men in the ranks of capital who are shamelessly prof- 
iteering out of the necessities of the people and taking advantage of 
the dire needs of the Government to extort unholy profits. There; 
are a few men in the ranks of labor who are preaching disloyalty 
and discontent and aiding the Kaiser as surely as though they were 
bearing German arms. But there is another side to the shield that 
gives us belief that the spirit of the country at large is sound, its 
loyalty unquestioned. Tabor in the mass has always been loyal to 
its country when that country in extremity called for the supreme 
sacrifice. In all our wars labor has poured out its blood in defense 
of the flag. Labor, whether on the battle ground or in the factory 
that made the guns has bent its back to the task of winning through. 
In this war, as in all other wars in American history, labor is going 
to the front trenches to meet the hail of German shot and shell. 
Twenty-one thousand members of the United Mine Workers of 
America are to-night under the colors. Hardly a home that has not 
sent its loved one away, and many a workingman's home will mourn 
its dead before this contest is over. Labor has faith in the patient, 
silent man in the White House, who bears upon his shoulders the 
sorrows of one who loves not peace less but honor more. It believes 
in the war aims voiced by our great President and in the justice of 
our allied cause. It will bear the acid test of loyalty and love to 
American ideals and institutions, now in clash with the imperious 
will of the German war lord. 

Nor does this supreme thing for which men will give up every- 
thing, this acid test of a man's love of country, stir only in the 
breasts of working men. In every walk of life, in the mansion of 
the wealthy as well as in the lowly dwelling of the poor, this spirit 
is manifest to-day. Thousands of men whose names count big in 
(lie world of trade and finance have given up their private business 
and turned their talent, their genius, and directive power over to 
their country without recompense nor hope of pecuniary reward, 
touched by the impelling spirit of patriotism which awakened from 
its sometime slumber, demands alike of fame and fortune and lowly 
station the same meed of service and of sacrifice. The sons of the 
rich lie beneath the Army tent to-night side by side with the sons 
of the poor. To-morrow they will " go over the top " together, and 
their blood will mingle in the soil of France. Together they will 
bear the hardships and share the joys and sorrows that soldiers know 
and soldiers share when all the past matters not in the task that con- 
fronts them. The spirit of democracy will work its leaven among 
the boys over yonder, and who shall not say that when the conflict 
ends and America's young men come home to work out the prob- 
lems of peace, a better humanity will dawn. 



labor's relation to the world war. 19 

It is for us at home to stouten the hearts of those we send abroad ; 
it is for us to see that needless blood shall not be sacrificed because 
we failed to provide for them; it is for us to see that they shall have 
a land to come back to when it is over, in which they may again 
take up the callings of peace, while opportunity for man to achieve 
and have holds wide the door for their returning; it is up to us 
while they are gone to keep aglow the hearthstone. 

They may be gone " for a long, long time.*' but when they do come 
back let it be to a better America than they knew before their going, 
an America purged from avarice and selfish greed through the fires 
of a great sacrifice. 



INDUSTRIAL SAFETY. 

The subject of accident prevention, embodying ako efficient and 
prompt first-aid care of the injured, has two distinct sides, viz, hu- 
manitarian and utilitarian. The needless waste of life and limb in 
modern industry may be reckoned first in human suffering and pain 
to the injured, loss of support to the dependents of the injured 
workmen ; second, loss in eificieiKry in production and aggregate pro- 
duction of the things necessary to man's comfort and welfare. 

A careful estimate prepared by Dr. Frederick L. Hoffman, statistician of the 
Prudential Insurance Co. of America, shows that in 1916 there were approxi- 
mately 22.000 persons killed in industrial accidents and that at least half a 
million were so seriously injured that they lost more than four weeks from 
work. * * * In the past ten years if the number killed in accidents each 
year had been as low as it was in 1916, the lives of 220.000 industrial workers 
have been snuffed out. If that 220,000 had been buried in a single trench, side 
by side and shoulder to shoulder, that trench would now be more than 80 miles 
long and would have to be lengthened 8 miles each year to accommodate the 
remains of the poor unfortunates. * * * If the hospital cots of those seri- 
ously injured in the 10 years could be placed end to end in a continuous, un- 
broken line, that line would completely cover a single railroad extending as far 
as from New York to San Francisco and back again. — Proceedings National 
Safety Council. 

Statistical reports from the many States in which workman's com- 
pensation laws are operative show a very large percentage of acci- 
dents to be nonmechanical, accidents that might have been prevented 
by a proper understanding of the common rules of safety. Unques- 
tionably many accidents occur because of the element of bodily or 
brain fatigue caused by excessive hours of excessive exertion, where 
the hand and brain lacks coordination for just that fraction of a 
second necessary for an accident to occur. Regulation of hours and 
other trade restrictions necessary to keep the workman in normal 
bodily and mental vigor during his hours of employment can prevent 
that class of accidents. 

The class of accidents due, however, to ignorance nf common rules 
of safety, or carelessness on the part of employee, or disregard of 
the necessity for intelligent study and application of " safety -first " 
rules and principles by employers, can be almost, if not entirely, 
eliminted. The problem must be approached by both employer and 
employee in a spirit of cooperation, a feeling that each is contribut- 
ing to the thing most desired in industry — the preventing of pre- 
ventable industrial accidents and the human conservation of life and 
limb. 



20 labor's relation to the world war. 

In its relation to successful conduct of the war the question of 
industrial safety bears a new and tremendously important aspect. 
No war in history has made such calls upon the industrial worker. 
It is a war fought out in the machine shop, mills, and factories of 
America. If the men at the front can not be supplied with muni- 
tions and all the supplies needed to maintain an army at the front, 
opposed to the most scientifically equipped army ever known, then 
Germany wins. Every American workman withdrawn from indus- 
try by accident or death at a time when the maximum man power of 
America is needed, lessens just that much America's ability to keep 
that huge war machine in effective operation. 

These stand to-day the sa feguard <>t' our Nation, and on their Loyal service 
depends the success of our allied armies at the front, fighting our fight for 
humanity — for world democracy. — Proceedings National Safety Council. 

ORGANIZED LABOR 

As a whole still unorganized for safetj 

One would be shortsighted, indeed, if in this field alone he did not recognize 
a work well worth a lifetime of devotion. 

As we see it. also, safety is but the entering wedge whereby a better under- 
standing can be developed between the employer and the employee. With it 
must come a frank discussion of one vital problem, the solution of which works 
for their mutual benefit. 

Having found that the cooperative plan really works for the good of all in 
this one instance, does it not stand to reason thai the circle of application will 
grow, become larger and larger until, through faith in each other, the con- 
tending forces will be led out of the wilderness of strife and misunderstanding 
into the promised land of industrial peace — made a fact through a square deal 
for all. — Lew R. Palmer, president Vational Safety council. 



WORK OF CONCILIATION BUREAU OF DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. 

I Fifth Annual Report of Secretary of Labor.] 
WORK OF THE PRESENT YEAR. 

On July i, 1916, 21 mediation cases were pending and 357 addi- 
tional requests for mediation have been made, bringing the total 
number for the fiscal year to 378. Of this number 248 cases have 
been adjusted, 47 proved impossible of adjustment, 41 were settled 
before arrival of the commissioner or disposed of without the Depart- 
ment's intervention, and 42 were pending at the close of the fiscal 
year. 

These cases embraced controversies in nearly eveiy State of the 
Union — in exact figures, 43 States, together with Alaska and Porto 
Rico. From 5 States only came no requisition for the good offices of 
the Department. 

A majority of the employers and employees involved in industrial 
controversies evinced a keen desire to secure the good offices of the 
Department of Labor through its conciliators, and to take advantage 
of the machinery created under that section of the organic law of 
the Department, the purpose of which in this field of its activities 
has been the fostering of industrial peace on a basis of industrial 
justice. During the four years the Division of Conciliation has beeu 
m existence the foundation has been laid to aid materially in the 



LABOR S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 21 

quick adjustment of such disputes. It had been demonstrated that 
the intervention of an impartial third party in the person of a con- 
ciliator approved by the Department invariably has expedited the set- 
tlement of a dispute which had culminated in a strike or a lockout. 
In a large number of instances the conciliators have been able not 
only to bring about agreement in cases of existing differences — often 
arising from misunderstandings — but to avert the threatened strike 
altogether. 

The anxiety of the Government, particularly at this time, for a 
full production from mine, mill, and factory in order that the war 
progress of the United States and our allies might be unhampered 
caused the commissioners of conciliation to strain every effort to 
secure satisfactory adjustments in all labor controversies, with the 
special purpose of preventing wherever possible any stoppage of 
work and consequent loss to the country in output and to the workers 
in wages. Vastly increased production has been thus facilitated. It 
is often the case that employers refuse to deal with committees repre- 
senting their own employees ; but even in these instances there never 
is a refusal to meet and discuss the merits of the dispute with the 
conciliators of the Department. The opportunitjr thus afforded each 
side to learn the real position taken by the other soon bears fruit. 
This knowledge, or glance over their respective fences, usually enables 
the conciliators, by tactfully impressing the mutuality of interest 
and such equity as exists in their respective claims, to reconcile the 
differences. 

The success which has attended the Department's representatives in 
the great majority of disputes has been most gratifying. In many 
instances through the efforts of the Department strikes which would 
have involved thousands of workers engaged in great operations were 
quietly averted and industrial peace maintained. All this was ac- 
complished without publicity and the consequent excitement which 
invariably attends industrial disturbances when heralded in the press. 
Great plants thus secured uninterrupted production for stated 
periods — some of the agreements running for a year and others for 
the period of the war. 

Requests for conciliators have come to the Department from gov- 
ernmental agencies as well as from unofficial employers and em- 
ployees. These applications increased fourfold in an amazingly 
brief period following the declaration of war. The encouraging 
element developed in almost all these controversies was the sincere 
desire evidenced on all sides not to proceed to such extremes as would 
result in an embarrassment to the Government. The Department's 
representatives fostered this spirit to the utmost, and thus were able 
to render vital services at a critical time. 

The Department and its commissioners of conciliation have ren- 
dered every assistance possible and cooperated to the fullest extent 
in the adjustment of controversies affecting all matters brought to 
its attention by the Department of War, the Department of the 
Navy, the Council of National Defense, the Shipping Board, and tho 
War Industries Board, as well as by all other commissions which 
have been created for the conduct of the war. In every instance tho 
sole purpose and policy of the Department has been to secure the 
results desired, namely, the settlement of all controversies in order 



22 labor's relation to the world war. 

thai industrial peace may reign — a condition most beneficial in times 
of peace, but of vital importance in time of war. It has been the 
policy of the Department of Labor not to endeavor to impose its 
viewpoint upon either the worker or the management in any dispute 
that may arise, but rather to find some basis mutually acceptable 
even though it may not be mutually satisfactory. In other words, 
the work of mediation is not a judicial work; it is not a judicial 
function; it is not to hear both sides and then determine the rights 
and wrongs of the situation, or to pass judgment and then enforce 
its decision. The work is diplomatic rather than judicial, and it is 
in that spirit that problems of conciliation in labor controversies are 
approached. 

In line with this purpose the conciliators often are able to remove 
the barriers which prevent employers and employees meeting on 
common ground, and thus the way is paved for more friendly rela- 
tions and a broader grasp of their respective rights. The iact is 
brought home that there is another side, and even in the absence of 
immediate success the seed has been sown which bears fruit in some 
modification of working conditions or a greater consideration for the 
human rights of employees and a better understanding of problems 
which harass employers. 

Labor has discovered that it has a standing in the Government 
machinery of its country whenever its demands are based on its in- 
dustrial and constitutional rights. Employers, on the other hand, 
have found in the Department a defender against unreasonable 
exaction. 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S DECLARATION OF WAR AIMS. 
OUR PROGRAM. 

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there 
shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but 
diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. 

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside terri- 
torial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be 
closed, in whole or in part, by international action for the enforce- 
ment of international covenants. 

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and 
the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the 
nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its 
maintenance. 

IV. Adequate guaranties given and taken that national armaments 
will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. 

, V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of 
all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle 
that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of 
the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable 
claims of the Government whose title is to be determined. 

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement 
of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest 
cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her 
an unhampered and unembarrassed opportun^ for the independent 



LABOR S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. 23 

determination of her own political development and national policy 
and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations 
under institutions of her own choosing, and, more than a welcome, 
assistance nlso of every kind that she may need and may herself 
desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the 
months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their 
comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, 
and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. 

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and 
restored, without any attempt to limit the, sovereignty which she 
enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act 
will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations 
in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the 
government of their relations with one another. Without this heal- 
ing act the whole structure and validity of international law is for- 
ever impaired. 

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded por- 
tions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in 
the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the 
world for nearly 50 years, should be righted, in order that peace may 
once more be made secure in the interest of all. 

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected 
along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. 

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the na- 
tions we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the 
freest opportunity of autonomous development. 

XL Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; oc- 
cupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access 
to the sea ; and the relations of the several Balkan States to one 
another determined by friendly counsel along historically established 
lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guaranties of 
the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of 
the several Balkan States should be entered into. 

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should 
be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are 
now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of 
life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous de- 
velopment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a 
free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under inter- 
national guaranties. 

INDEPENDENCE FOR POLAND. 

XIII. An independent Polish State should be erected, which 
should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish popu- 
lations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, 
and whose political and economic independence and territorial in- 
tegrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. 

XTV. A general association of nations must be formed under 
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guaranties of 
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small 
States alike. 



24 labor's relation to the world war. 

DECLARATIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE COM- 
MITTEE ON LABOR, ADVISORY COMMISSION OF THE COUNCIL 
OF NATIONAL DEFENSE. 

[Adopted by the Council of National Defense.] 

The defense and safety of the Nation must be the first, considera- 
tion of all patriotic citizen-. To avoid confusion and facilitate the 
preparation for national defense and give a stable basis upon which 
the representatives of the Government may operate during the war, 
we recommend: 

First, That the Council of National Defense should issue a state- 
ment to employers and employees in our industrial plants and trans- 
portation systems advising that neither employers nor employees 
shall endeavor to take advantage of the country's necessities to 
change existing standards. When economic or other emergencies 
arise requiring changes of standards, the same should be made only 
after such proposed changes have been investigated and approved by 
the Council of National Defense. 

Second. That the Council of National Defense urge upon the leg- 
islatures of the States, as well as all administrative agencies charged 
with the enforcement of labor and health laws, the great duty of 
rigorously maintaining the existing safeguards as to the health and 
the welfare of workers, and that no departure from such present 
standards in State laws or State rulings affecting labor should be 
taken without a declaration of the Council of National Defense that 
such a departure is essential for the effective pursuit <>f the national 
defense. 

Third. That the Council of National Defense urge upon the legis- 
latures of the several States that before final adjournment they dele- 
gate to the governors of their respective States the power to suspend 
or modify restrictions contained in their labor laws when such sus- 
pension or modification shall be requested by the Council of Na- 
tional Defense; and such suspension or modifications, when made, 
shall continue for a specified period and not longer than the duration 
of the war. 

There seems to be some misunderstanding of the scope of the state- 
ment made by the Council of National Defense when it advised "that 
neither employers nor employees shall endeavor to take advantage of 
the country's necessities to change existing standards." In order 
that that misunderstanding may be removed, the following explana- 
tion is made : 

There have been established by legislation, by mutual agreement 
between employers and employees, or by custom certain standards 
constituting a day's work. These vary from 7 hours per day in some 
kinds of office work to 12 hours per day in continuous-operation 
plants. The various States and municipalities have established spe- 
cific standards of safety and sanitation and have provided inspection 
service to enforce the regulations. They have also established maxi- 
mum hours of work for women and minimum age limits for children 
employed in gainful occupations. It is the judgment of the Council 
of National Defense that the Federal. State, and municipal govern- 
ments should continue to enforce the standards they have established 
unless and until the Council of National Defense has determined 



labor's relation to the world war. 25 

that some modification or change of these standards is essential to the 
national safety; that employers and employees in private industries 
should not attempt to take advantage of the existing abnormal con- 
ditions to change the standards which they were unable to change 
under normal conditions. 

The one other standard that the council had in mind was the 
standard of living. It recognizes that the standard of living is in- 
definite and difficult to determine, because it is in a measure de- 
pendent upon the purchasing power of the wages received remaining 
the same. It believes, however, that no arbitrary change in wages 
should be sought at this time bj' either employers or employees 
through the process of strikes or lockouts without at least giving the 
established agencies of the Government — the mediation board in the 
transportation service and the Division of Conciliation of the De 
partment of Labor in the other industries — an opportunity to adjust 
the difficulties without a stoppage of work occurring. While the 
Council of National Defense does not mean to intimate that under 
ordinary circumstances the efficiency of workers is the only element 
that should be taken into consideration in fixing the hours of labor, 
safety, sanitation, women's work, and child-labor standards, it is the 
object that must be attained during the period when the Nation's 
safety is involved. It may therefore be necessary for the council, as 
a result of its investigations and experience, to suggest modifications 
and changes in these standards during that time. It is not the pur- 
pose of the council, however, to undertake to determine the wage 
rate that will be sufficient to maintain the existing standards of 
living. That should be referred to the mediation agencies of the 
Government above referred to or to such other constituted agencies 
as may exist, to the end that such questions may be adjusted in an 
orderly and equitable manner, to avoid the^ stoppage of industries 
which are so vital to the interests of the Nation at this critical time. 
This is no time for cocking the boat. 



Ajpril 23. 1917. 

Excerpt from statement made by Secretary of Labor Wilson at 
a conference between the Secretary of Commerce, William C. Red- 
field; the Secretary of Labor, W. B. Wilson; and John Williams and 
Walter Larkin, representing the Amalgamated Association of Iron, 
Steel and Tin Plate Workers: James Sullivan, representing the labor 
committee of the advisory commission of the Council of National 
Defense; and Grant Hamilton, representing the American Federa 
tion of Labor. 

Secretarv Wilson. The Council of National Defense takes this 
position: That the standards that have been established by law, by 
mutual agreement,' or by custom should not be changed at this time; 
that where either the employer or the employee has been unable 
under normal conditions to change the standards to their own liking 
they should not take advantage of the present abnormal conditions 
to establish new standards. Among those standards is the standard 
of living. The Council of National Defense recognizes the fact that 
the standard of living is an indefinite standard, difficult to determine, 
that it is almost entirely dependent upon the rate of wages retain- 
ing the same purchasing power. If the wages received will not pur- 



26 labor's relation to the world war. 

chase as much, then the standard of living is lowered. If the wages 
received will purchase more, then the standard of living is increased. 
Because of the indefiniteness of the standard of living and the main- 
taining of it at the same point, the council recognizes the fact that 
from time to time disputes will arise as to what is necessary to main- 
tain that standard of living, but it feels that before any stoppage 
of work takes place in any industry in which the Government is 
interested for the maintenance of safety that the established agencies 
of the Government should be given an opportunity to use their good 
offices to bring about an adjustment of the impending dispute. 

Now, there is only one point aside from the wage question in 
which your organization is especially interested in connection with 
standards, and that is the question of recognition of the union. That 
is the one burning question in which, aside from these other ques- 
tions, you are involved. I do not know the attitude of the other 
members of the council on this particular point, but my own attitude 
is this, that capital has no right to interfere with workingmen or- 
ganizing labor any more than the workingman has a right to inter- 
fere with the capitalists organizing capital. The two are on a parity 
on that point, and so my feeling is that in the present emergency 
the employer has no right to interfere with you in your efforts to 
organize the workers into unions, just as you have no right to inter- 
fere with capitalists organizing capital into corporations. If you 
can get a condition where efforts to organize the workers are not 
interfered with and where a scale of wages is recognized that main- 
tains the present standard of living, it occurs to me that for the 
time being no stoppage of work should take place for the purpose 
of forcing recognition of the union. Of course, that would not inter- 
fere with the employers and yourselves entering into any arrange- 
ment for recognition that might be mutually agreeable. 



PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE FOR 
LABOR AND DEMOCRACY. 

[Headquarters, 280 Broadway, New York.] 

The American Alliance for Labor and Democracy submits to all 
the American people the following statement of the purposes which 
called it into existence, the principles it seeks to inculcate, and the 
purposes it aims to achieve : 

We uphold as fundamental the ideals of democracy and interna- 
tionalism, politically as well as industrially. There are also the fun- 
damental principles and ideals of the American labor movement, 
and we hold further that never was the active assertion and main- 
tenance of these ideals more urgently needed than at this time. 

As believers in the great and splendid vision of democracy and in- 
ternationalism, the fraternalism and solidarity of all peoples, we 
assert at this time our unqualified loyalty to the Republic of the 
United States of America and our determination to do all that lies 
in our power to win the war in which it is engaged. 

Loyalty to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and internationalism 
requires loyalty to America. 



LABOR S RELATION TO THE WORLD WAR. '27 

Disloyalty to America in this crisis is disloyalty to the cause of 
freedom, democracy, and internationalism. 

No national selfishness impelled this Republic to enter the war. 
The impelling motive was the consuming idealism born with the es- 
tablishment of this Republic itself to preserve freedom not only for 
itself but for all nations, great and small, and the body of interna- 
tional law which all the free democractic nations of the world respect 
and observe and only the brutal autocracies seek to dishonor and 
destroy. In such a conflict real standard bearers of democracy and 
true internationalists can have no hesitation in supporting our Re- 
public, which has made its own the cause and interests of all free 
peoples. It is therefore in truth not a " capitalists' war," but a 
freemen's war. 

Fully impressed by these facts, realizing that a noble interna- 
tionalism is implicit in our American conception of national exist- 
ence, it shall be our purpose to bring to the support of the Govern- 
ment all the moral and material power of the working class of the 
Nation. It shall be our task to interpret America's democratic spirit. 
and purpose in this conflict to our fellow workers, especially those 
of foreign birth, and to combat every form of propaganda, no matter 
by whom it may be carried on, which tends to weaken the loyalty 
and devotion of the masses and their willingness to strive and sacri- 
fice for the Nation and its high purposes. 

We shall strip the mask from those who in the name of democracy, 
antimilitarism, and peace are engaged in the nefarious propaganda 
of treachery to all that these noble words represent. We indignantly 
repudiate the claim that this propaganda — which, be it remembered, 
brings joy and comfort to German autocracy — has the support of 
the labor movement of America. Not even at the behest of the so- 
called people's council will the organized workers of America pros- 
titute the labor movement to serve the brutal power responsible for 
the infamous rape of Belgium — the power that would subject Russia 
to a worse despotism than that of the Romanoffs. 

Democracy will not be served by the victory of autocracy, by let- 
ting the Declaration of Independence be supplemented bv the Kaiser's 
fiat. 

Militarism will not be checked by surrender to the power which 
has organized all the resources of civilization to the end of imposing 
its brutal iron rule on the world. 

Peace will not be secured to the world through the subjection of the 
free and democratic nations. 

We shall be as loyal to the struggle for freedom and democracy at 
home as to the struggle for freedom and democracy in international 
relations. We harbor no delusions. We know that even in this great 
democractic nation of nations war inevitably brings its abuses. Efforts 
to lower the standards of employment may be made. Attempts may 
be made to invade our democratic rights. Against these evils we 
shall strive vigorously and successfully as we contend against the 
menace of German despotism. Moreover, as the exigencies of the 
war develop new opportunities to increase our political and indus- 
trial democracy and to extend the influence of labor in the control of 
government and industrial affairs we shall seize these opportunities. 

We point to the fact that this constructive work for democracy at 
home is being carried on by the American Federation of Labor with 



28 labor's relation to thr world war. 

a measure of success which the most hopeful among us hardly dared 
dream was possible. It is no exaggeration to claim that already 
more has been accomplished by the federation than the so-called peo- 
ple's council can ever hope to accomplish — more, even, than it has 
either the understanding or the imagination to demand. On every 
board and mission created for war purposes organized labor is repre- 
sented by representatives of its own choosing, and in nearly every 
contract let by the Government union labor conditions and wages 
are provided for. This is a great achievemet, and we are confident 
that there will be no retracing, but advancing of the strides forward 
thus taken. 

To the men and women of the American labor movement and to 
all sincere freinds of democracy and internationalism we call for 
loyal support to America and her allies in this great struggle. Let 
us make our beloved Republic strong and victorious for the sake of 
humanity, and thus insure for our children and their children the 
priceless heritage of liberty and democracy. Let us at the same time 
stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against the foes of democracy 
within our own borders, resolved never to rest until the goal of de- 
mocracy, industrial, political, and international, has been attained. 

The American Alliance for Labor and Democracy brings this chal- 
lenge to the brain and conscience of America, supremely confident 
of an enthusiastic and loyal response to America's call for service 
and sacrifice, and thus assure to the people of America and all the 
peoples of all nations opportunity for justice, freedom, and democ- 
racy. 

Samuel Gompers, 

Chairman. 

Frank Morrison, 

Vice Chairman. 

Robert Maisel, 
Director and Secretary. 

Advisory board: J. P. Holland, Robert P. Brindell, David J. 
Berry, W. L. Small, Hugh Frayne, William Kohn, Chester M. 
Wright, Finest Bohm, Joseph Barondess. 



ONE WAY TO HELP. 



If the organization to which you belong believes in the principles 
and ideals here given expression, present this resolution for indorse- 
ment and then notify the American Alliance for Labor and Democ- 
racy : 

Resolution adopted by the American Alliance for Labor :tud Democracy at 
its meeting in New York City July 28. 1917: 

It is the sense of this conference that it is the duty of all the people of the 
United Stntes, without regard to class, nationality, politics, or religions, faith- 
fully and loyally to support the Government of the United States in carrying 
the present war for justice, freedom, and democracy to a triumphant conclu- 
sion, and we pledge ourselves to every honorable effort for the accomplishment 
of that purpose 

o 



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